


All I'm Thinking About

by lordjohnmarbury



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Nanny, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Zookeeper AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24310675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordjohnmarbury/pseuds/lordjohnmarbury
Summary: Zhenya can’t believe that it’s taken him seven whole days to realize that his traveling companion is beautiful.
Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin
Comments: 20
Kudos: 109
Collections: The 2020 Sid/Geno Exchange





	All I'm Thinking About

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PT8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PT8/gifts).



Zhenya is having an amazing dream- he’s just won the Stanley Cup, he’s skating lazily across the ice to accept the Conn Smythe trophy, his arms raised in triumph- when aggressive buzzing from his phone on the bedside table wakes him. He reaches blindly for it, his face still buried in his pillows, hoping to silence the alarm but instead succeeds only in knocking it off the table and onto the carpet. Zhenya groans and reluctantly opens his eyes. Why the fuck is it still so dark? He’s going to be pissed if it turned out that he’s accidentally set his alarm for two hours earlier than usual, but squinting at the clock without his glasses on is a futile task: it’s just a glowing blob.

Zhenya heaves himself out of bed with a groan and retrieves the phone slowly shifting its way across the floor with each vibration. It’s only now, seeing the words _Jake (cell phone)_ on the screen that Zhenya’s still half-asleep brain finally realizes that his alarm isn’t going off after all. Zhenya swipes to answer the call and slumps back onto his bed with the phone to his ear.

“Jake?” Zhenya mumbles, incapable of stringing together any longer sentences at this time in the morning in Russian, let alone in English.

“Sorry to call you so early this morning, Geno,” Jake says apologetically, and way too cheerfully for any sane person awake at 4.30am. “But Saya, the clouded leopard? She’s gone into labour.”

“Saya having the babies _now_?” Zhenya jerks upright, suddenly much more alert.

“It seems like it. So get your butt down here asap.”

“Ok, I come.” Zhenya hangs up and sprints into the bathroom to quickly pee and put his contact lenses in, before pulling on his Pittsburgh Zoo polo shirt and cargo pants and heading for the door. There’s only a bus to the zoo once an hour this time in the morning, but if he hurries, Zhenya should be able to make it. He jogs his way to the bus stop a couple of blocks away, and just manages to make it to the stop as the bus is pulling up.

Zhenya pays the driver and then slumps down in a seat a few rows back, panting a little from the exertion of his run. He tips his head back and to the side, so he can lean against the window, half wishing that he’d had the chance to make a cup of coffee or at least a cup of tea, but still smiling to himself a little at the thought of the leopard cubs that were on their way.

As the bus pulls away from the stop, Zhenya raises his head and glances around at his fellow passengers. It’s usually crowded on Zhenya’s regular commute to work, but at this time there’s only a handful of other people. A pair of women wearing shirts with the Starbucks logo on them are quietly chatting in the back row, and a couple of seats in front and across the aisle from Zhenya sits a man wearing a plain black t shirt, jeans and sneakers. His dark hair curls a little at the nape of his neck, a pale strip of skin exposed as he bends over the book he’s reading. Zhenya wonders vaguely what job he might have, before leaning back against the scratchy fabric of the headrest and fishing his phone out of his pocket to scroll through Instagram for the rest of the ride. His friends in Russia are several hours ahead, so there are a few new posts from them in his feed. There’s a very cute picture of Seryozha holding one of the sloths he cares for at Moscow Zoo. Zhenya likes it and comments with a string of heart emojis.

As the bus slows before stopping outside the zoo, Zhenya stands up and works his way down the narrow aisle towards the doors. The guy sitting in front of him glances up at the movement, giving Zhenya a brief smile as Zhenya brushes past him, but Zhenya’s mind is too preoccupied with worrying about Saya. It’s not that he doesn’t _trust_ Jake and Olli to oversee the birth- there’s not much any of the zookeepers can do for now, besides sit and watch on CCTV- but Zhenya doesn’t exactly have faith in them not to do something stupid whilst left unsupervised. Zhenya still hasn’t forgotten the capybara incident of 2016, and nor, he suspects, has the group of half-traumatized half-delighted 3rd graders who watched the giant rodent run amok.

“Any progress?” Zhenya whispers as he ducks through the doorway into the observation room and slides into a seat next to Jake and Olli, who are staring intently at the CCTV monitors.

Jake turns at the sound of Zhenya’s voice.

“She’s been moving back and forth between the nesting box and the enclosure,” Jake speaks in a low voice, as if the leopard might be able to hear them through the walls. “But no sign of any cubs yet.”

“She’s spending longer in the nesting box each time she goes in there,” Olli gestures at the screen that shows Saya pacing up and down. “So we don’t think it’s gonna be long.”

Olli is right, Zhenya thinks as he watches the leopard. The beautiful dappled markings in her coat are barely visible through the grainy video feed, but it’s clear enough that her movements are restless and her body language distressed. He recognizes the signs from her last pregnancy; the cubs aren’t far off now.

Saya moves back into the nesting box and Zhenya goes to make a cup of coffee from the machine in the corner, glancing anxiously over his shoulder back at the screens every couple of seconds, just in case something has changed in the short moment he’s looking away.

When he sits back down in front of the monitor bank, Saya is still in the nesting box, and she’s stopped moving. Zhenya exchanges an excited glance with Olli and sips his coffee, not wanting to say anything and jinx what he thinks is happening.

“There’s a cub! See, there!” Zhenya jumps to his feet, almost knocking over his coffee cup in his excitement as he points at the small dark shape on the screen. He’s seen plenty of animals give birth by now, but Zhenya would be the first to admit that he’s a sentimental guy, and it still feels special watching Saya twist in her bed of straw to reach for the cub and start licking it clean.

Another cub arrives shortly after and Zhenya breathes a sigh of relief that this squirming damp ball of fur seems healthy, too.

“She’s doing well,” Jake says under his breath as Saya moves on to cleaning the second cub. Zhenya glares at him. Zhenya has had firm words with Jake before about not tempting fate, but apparently the message hasn’t sunk in. Thankfully Olli is a healthy level of superstitious, and clamps a hand over Jake’s mouth before he can say anything else that might provoke the wrath of the gods.

Saya does seem to be showing good maternal instincts, but Zhenya can’t help but feel a knot of worry grow in his stomach as she moves into the nursing position and the cubs don’t immediately latch on. Saya uses her nose to nudge a cub closer, but it turns its head away. She adjusts her position again, but the cubs still don’t start to suckle. Zhenya can tell even through the pixellated screen that Saya is distressed, tossing her head and shifting about uncomfortably in the straw. For a second Zhenya thinks he can hear her whimper, but then he remembers that the CCTV has no sound, and realizes the noise is actually coming from Jake. Zhenya tears his eyes away from the screen to look at him. Jake’s face is crumpled with guilt.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have said… y’know.” He looks so distraught that any anger Zhenya had felt about his disrespect towards superstitions vanishes. Sometimes he forgets that Jake and Olli are only kids, fresh out of college. They’d both only witnessed a handful of births between them. This was probably the first time they’d faced the harsh reality that when it comes to wild animals, a lot of the time things don’t always go to plan.

Zhenya is about to tell Jake that there’s still a chance Saya will be able to get the cubs to nurse, when he catches sight of movement on the monitor in his peripheral vision that makes the words crumble like dust in his dry mouth. Saya has left the nesting box and the cubs are alone.

*

This time, at least, Zhenya is prepared. He’s pre-programmed his coffee machine and the smell drifting through the apartment from his kitchen is enough to drag him out of his bed when his alarm goes off. The hurriedly drunk coffee helps wake him up a bit, but Zhenya still feels almost as groggy as yesterday as he boards the bus and slumps in the same seat as before; he might have more caffeine today, but he’d gotten even less sleep than last night. After spending the whole day watching, waiting and hoping for a miracle, Zhenya had been forced to conclude that there was no choice: they were going to have to hand rear the cubs. And this meant feeding every two hours, round the clock. Olli had drawn the short straw with the night shift, but Zhenya couldn’t help but feel his shift was much better. He was going to have to get used to early morning starts for the foreseeable future. If he’d had almost any other job, Zhenya is pretty sure he’d refuse to do it, but it’s hard to say no to bottle feeding baby animals, even if it does take place at a highly unsociable hour. He spends the bus journey alternating between half worrying about the cubs and hoping that they’ve made it through the night, and half daydreaming about how cute they’re going to be in a few weeks. Right now the cubs are blind and, when Zhenya had last seen them, still covered in amniotic fluid and other gross stuff, so it would have been a stretch for Zhenya to call them _cute_ , but once they actually start to look more like leopards than naked mole rats, they’ll be adorable. With a start, Zhenya realizes that the bus is drawing to a halt outside the zoo, and he hurries to squeeze his way down the aisle past the guy across the aisle bent over his book, a Pirates ball cap shielding his face.

When Zhenya arrives at the leopard enclosure he finds Olli packing his backpack, ready to leave, but still half looking over his shoulder at the transparent plastic box housing the cubs. The young zookeeper’s face is drawn with tiredness.

“Hey, Geno. They’re doing fine,” Olli quickly reassures as Zhenya pulls on long blue scrubs and latex gloves. “But they’ll be ready for another feed in about 20 minutes. Do you want me to stick around just in case, or—”

“Go,” Zhenya chides, flapping his hands at Olli. “Go sleep, I’m look after them just fine, I promise.”

“Ok. Thanks, Geno.” Olli hitches his bag onto one shoulder and gives Zhenya a quick slap on his back as he leaves.

Zhenya starts busying himself with preparing the milk for the cubs’ morning feed: carefully weighing out the formula and mixing in the colostrum and vitamins, before pouring it all into a small bottle. Once everything is prepared, he moves over to where the cubs are curled up in pile of soft towels. Zhenya almost feels bad for waking them up, but they have to be weighed. The female cub he picks up mewls weakly in protest, but while still so tiny and with her eyes still closed, there’s not much of a defense she can put up right now.

Now that the cubs have been cleaned up, her fur is no longer damp with gloop and the dark dappled patches marking her soft grey coat are properly visible to Zhenya for the first time. He can’t help but smile as he gently strokes an index finger along the length of her back before carefully lowering her onto the weighing scales. Right now the leopard cubs don’t look much different from the kittens Zhenya’s own cat, Dixie, had given birth to a few years ago, and it’s hard to believe they’re going to become such magnificent creatures. Zhenya jots down her weight. He’ll make adjustments to the cubs’ feed as they start to grow.

Zhenya lifts the cub back up and settles her in the crook of his elbow, reaching for the bottle of milk with his other hand. He presents the bottle to the cub and she immediately latches on and starts gulping the formula down.

“You weren’t this keen to drink from your mama yesterday, were you? It would have saved us a great deal of lost sleep and worry if you’d just drunk her milk like you were meant to,” Zhenya grumbles softly to the cub in Russian as she drinks.

The rest of Zhenya’s day is a blur of trying to balance looking after the cubs- and their feeds every two hours- alongside his regular zookeeper duties. By the time Jake comes to take over for the next shift, Zhenya is exhausted. He falls asleep on the bus home and it’s only luck that means he wakes up just before his stop and not alone and disoriented in a dark bus depot. The latter of which might have happened to him once or twice before. Zhenya makes it a few steps into his apartment before dramatically throwing himself onto his couch and doesn’t move for the rest of the evening other than to get up for the pizza delivery guy. Zhenya knows all his friends with babies love to complain about how exhausting they are, but none of them have to also deal in between feeds with a rhino with digestive issues or a flamingo with an injured wing. Zhenya has enough energy to text Sasha that exact thought before plugging his phone into the charger by his bed, and slumping down under the covers, almost immediately asleep.

*

Thanks to sweet, wonderful caffeine, Zhenya actually feels vaguely human as he settles down in his now habitual seat halfway down the length of the bus. He’s been hand-rearing the cubs for a week now, and he’s gotten into the swing of the early morning routine by now. Having said that, it’s only one more week before the feedings drop down to once every four hours, and Zhenya cannot wait for the opportunity that will bring to have something of a lie in.

He glances around and realizes he’s across the aisle from the same guy as every morning journey he’s taken since Saya gave birth. He must have the same habit as Zhenya; always sitting halfway down the bus. The guy is bent over his book again, as usual, his eyebrows set in a slight frown as he reads. The bus begins to move again and Zhenya has to restrain himself from gasping softly as a ray of early morning light passes over his face, turned in profile to Zhenya. He wouldn’t look out of place in an Old Masters painting or perhaps a Renaissance sculpture: sharp cheekbones and pale skin, a strong nose and full lips. The baseball cap pushed down over his dark curls feels almost incongruous. Zhenya can’t believe that it’s taken him seven whole days to realize that his traveling companion is _beautiful_.

“I think I like a guy.” Zhenya admits later that morning, glancing over at Phil, where he’s chopping up fruit and vegetables for the pygmy hippos. “But I don’t know how to ask him out.”

“Oh,” Phil says, his knife pausing above cubes of watermelon. “I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask for relationship advice. What are you even asking me for?”

Truthfully, Zhenya decided to approach Phil for relationship advice because he’s less of a gossip than Olli and Jake, but rather than admit this, Zhenya shrugs.

“Why not? You have girlfriend, very hot. Must be doing something right.” Zhenya shrugs.

“I’ve asked myself every day for the past three years what I did to deserve Sandra. And three years later, I still don’t have the answer.”

“Smart, funny, cool job—“ Zhenya checks reasons off on his fingers as Phil squirms next to him.

“Anyway, how did you and Sandra meet?” Zhenya asks Phil as they stand together hosing down a pair of hippos. The weather getting hotter means that on top of their regular zookeeper duties and looking after the leopard cubs, Zhenya now also has to worry about keeping the animals cool and comfortable. Once they’re done giving the hippos a bath, Zhenya has plans to make some popsicles for the polar bears.

“She’s a friend of my sister’s. Why d’you ask?”

“I’m just wonder how you ask her out?”

“Oh man,” Phil chuckles and shakes his head ruefully. “You think I ever had the guts to ask a girl as gorgeous as Sandra out myself? Amanda set us up on a blind date, and I dunno. It just kind of escalated from there.”

“Not very useful, Phil.” Zhenya sighs.

“Well, tell me a bit more about the guy you like and maybe I can help. What kind of things do you have in common?”

“We get the same bus. I think he likes Russian history?” Zhenya thinks that the cover of the book the handsome guy had been reading had a picture of the US and Soviet Flags on it.

“You like history?” Phil asks skeptically. “When was the last time you watched a show on the History Channel that’s not about aliens?”

“I’m like _Russia._ ” Zhenya clarifies.

“Ok, well, ask him if he wants to go to a museum. Or a Russian restaurant or something. What’s his name, anyway?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want to ask a dude out and you can’t even remember what his name is?” Phil says incredulously, turning to face Zhenya with a skeptical expression on his face. Behind him, a hippo grunts happily as it rolls around in its mud bath.

“I said I like this guy, I’m not say I’m speak to him yet!” Zhenya protests.

“Go speak to him, then! Jesus, and I thought I was bad at the whole dating thing. You’re useless!”

Zhenya sprays Phil with water from his hose in retaliation.

*

Zhenya wavers as he gets on the bus the next morning. Phil is right, if he ever wants to ask out the hot guy, he needs to actually talk to him first, maybe even find out his name. Maybe he should sit down in the seat right next to him. Talking across the aisle from his usual seat would be kind of awkward. But it would be even weirder to sit down right next to a guy on an otherwise deserted bus, wouldn’t it? That was one of the unspoken rules of public transport etiquette: don’t sit down next to someone if there are other available seats. Especially if he’s someone who has strict personal space boundaries. Zhenya has no such concerns: he feels touch starved if he hasn’t bear hugged at least one friend per day, but he knows that not everyone feels the same way. And besides, they have their routine. Zhenya sits in his seat and the handsome guy sits in his. It would be wrong to start mixing up that ritual now.

Zhenya sits down in his usual seat. The guy is reading his incredibly dull looking Cold War book.Maybe Zhenya should start a conversation. That’s what Americans do, right? They talk to strangers on public transport. The New York subway, based on Zhenya’s couple of trips there, appears to encourage an attitude similar to the Moscow Metro in which chatting to people is strictly taboo. But apart from that, Americans seem to _love_ talking to strangers. Unless maybe the dark haired stranger isn’t American. His book is in English, so that probably narrows down countries that he could be from. Maybe the dark haired stranger is British and would be horrified by any attempts at American chattiness—

“Nice weather today, eh?” Zhenya startles out of his internal debate. The guy is smiling shyly at Zhenya, the book closed on his lap, a bus ticket tucked between its pages as a bookmark.

“Very nice,” Zhenya agrees. He glances out of the window at the clear blue sky. The polar bears are definitely going to want some more popsicles and they’re probably going to have to cancel the penguin parade. “Not good for penguins, though.”

That startles a honking giggle out of Zhenya’s new friend, his eyes creasing at the corners.

“You’re a zookeeper?” He asks, gesturing at the logo on Zhenya’s shirt.

Zhenya nods and reaches out his hand.

“I’m Geno. Nice to meet.”

“I’m Sid.” His palm is warm and solid against Zhenya’s. Zhenya’s gaze flicks from his long, strong fingers up to his lopsided smile. The smile slips slightly as he glances past Zhenya. “Oh, isn’t this your stop?”

Shit. Zhenya reluctantly pulls his hand from Sid’s grasp and reaches for his backpack. So much for making conversation. At least he knows Sid’s name now.

“See you tomorrow, Geno?” He phrases it half like a question, and sounds almost hopeful.

That note of hopefulness buoys Zhenya all the way to the leopard enclosure, and there’s still a spring in his step as he greets Olli.

“Wow.” Olli stands in front of Zhenya with his hands on his hips and an eyebrow raised. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in such a good mood this early in the morning. Like, ever. What’s up?”

“Maybe I’m just happy to see baby leopard,” Zhenya says, scooping up a mewling cub and holding her out as proof.

“Huh. Ok.” Olli doesn’t seem entirely convinced by this explanation but he leaves Zhenya to it. It’s true that feeding the cubs is Zhenya’s favorite part of his daily routine, but as he sits down to feed the pair, running his fingers through their soft fur as their outsized paws grasp the bottles, Zhenya’s mind- for the first time ever- is only half focused on the cubs.

*

“Hi, Sid.”

“Hey, Geno.” Sid immediately closes his book at the sound of Zhenya’s voice and beams across at him. “How’s it going?”

“I’m need coffee,” Zhenya moans, raising the travel mug in his hand to his lips and sighing as he takes a satisfied gulp.

“I hear ya,” Sid nods as he sips at his own cup, despite looking bright eyed and with not a carefully gelled hair out of place. God Zhenya hates morning people- or at least, he would if they weren’t so damned attractive.

“You like Russian history?” Zhenya asks, thinking back to Phil’s advice.

“Oh, yes! I’m studying the Cold War at the moment, which is fascinating, and I’ve really been enjoying this book here about triangular diplomacy- it’s made me want to look more into Chinese history when previously my focus had being more on North America and Russia- but I’m really most interested in World War Two, especially…” Sid trails off, his cheeks flushing pink. “Sorry. I don’t want to bore you with the details. But I’m a history major and I can get carried away when I start talking.”

“You doing PhD?” Zhenya asks.

“No,” Sid’s cheeks go pinker still. “I’m studying my bachelor’s, I take classes at Pitt. It’s taken me about ten years longer than most, but…” He trails off and stares down at his hands wrapped around the coffee cup, clearly embarrassed.

Zhenya feels himself fill with anger towards whoever made Sid feel bad about going back to school, or made him feel stupid for not having a degree. Living in a country where he doesn’t speak the language perfectly, Zhenya is more than familiar with knowing that other people think he’s dumb. Nobody deserves to feel that way, especially not Sid.

“It’s ok, Sid.” Zhenya says gently. “Think it’s great you go back to school. Everyone take time to figure out what they want to do.”

“Not you, though, eh? I bet you wanted to be a zookeeper ever since you were a kid.”

“Yes,” Zhenya admits. “But take a lot longer to figure everything else out.” Zhenya sure as hell hadn’t ever pictured himself leaving Russia when he was a kid. His dream since he was five years old had been to work at Moscow zoo. It had taken him much, much longer to work out that living in Russia really wasn’t compatible with other parts of his life. Zhenya wanted to be a zookeeper, but he also wanted to get married, have kids. There was no chance of that happening at home.

*

The weather is cooler today, which means that Penguins on Parade is going ahead. It essentially involves the penguins waddling down the path in front of the aquarium while Zhenya walks along behind them like some kind of absurd, oversized bodyguard. It’s Zhenya’s job to stop them straying too far from the path and guiding them away from kids who get too close, but mostly he just gets to enjoy the expressions of delight on kids’ and adults’ faces alike. Everyone loves penguins.

Zhenya is shepherding the gentoo and macaronis past a pair of teenage girls whose attempts to take selfies with the penguins are dangerously over-enthusiastic, when he glances past them and feels his heart stand still. Sid from the bus is standing at the edge of the path, his usual ball cap jammed over his dark curls, smiling so hard his eyes are barely visible. He’s not looking at the penguins. He’s looking down at the kids whose tiny hands are held in his own, looking at them like they’re the centre of his universe. The girl looks six or seven years old, and the boy is still a toddler. Their skin is a few shades darker than Sid’s, but Zhenya thinks he can see his features in their hazel eyes and sweet smiles.

“Here, let me take a photo of you two with the penguins,” Zhenya can hear Sid say as he herds the penguins closer. “We can show it to Mommy when we get home.”

Sid looks up as he fishes his phone from his pocket and spots Zhenya.

“Geno! Hi!” He crouches down, his jeans straining dangerously at the thighs, and shepherds the kids closer together, taking several pictures of them with the penguins before popping back up. He’s smiling broadly again, but Zhenya can’t bring himself to reciprocate.

He feels numb. Logically, he’d known that Sid was probably straight, but having this cold hard evidence of his heterosexuality in front of him felt like he’d been slapped in the face with one of the slimy fish in the bucket Zhenya was currently carrying. Finding out there was no way Sid would reciprocate Zhenya’s feelings was bad enough. Zhenya didn’t need to see his adorable kids or hear mention of his probably equally beautiful wife.

“We’re actually here because of you,” Sid beams, unaware of the emotional trauma he’d just inflicted on Zhenya. “You mentioned the penguins the other day? I thought it would be fun to bring the kids along.”

“Sorry, have to go,” Zhenya tries not to let the hurt show in his voice. It’s not Sid’s fault that Zhenya is doomed to a life of tragic loneliness.“Need to stop baby hug penguin.”

Zhenya hurries away to extract the small child from an unimpressed king penguin, not letting himself look back.

*

The clouded leopard cubs are two weeks old and Zhenya finally gets to have a lie in thanks to their new, less frequent feeding schedule. Zhenya is grateful until he gets on the bus on Monday morning and realizes what it means. It’s 8 a.m. and Sid is on the earlier bus. It’s probably for the best. Zhenya shouldn’t spend his life pining after a guy with a wife and kids. But that doesn’t make the ache in his chest any easier to bear.

It doesn’t take Jake long to work out that something is up.

“I thought you’d be happier than this. The cubs are doing great and you’ve finally had the chance to get a decent night’s sleep. What gives?” He asks as they sweep up straw in Saya’s enclosure.

Zhenya sighs. He probably should have realized he wouldn’t be able to hide the way he was feeling, not when the hurt was hanging round Zhenya like a dark cloud.

“If I tell you, you must promise not to chirp,” Zhenya glowers at Jake.

“That depends on what you say. I mean, if it’s something _really_ embarrassing— ok, ok, I promise,” Jake says hurriedly as Zhenya picks up a bottle of milk and brandishes it like a weapon.

“This guy I sit next to on bus, I’m like him a lot. I think we have, like, good chemistry. I was going to maybe ask him out.”

“He turned you down?” Jake asks, his eyes wide.

“No.” Zhenya scowls. At least he hadn’t been outright rejected. That would probably have been worse. Or at least more humiliating. “But I found out he have wife and kids.” He explains what happened at the penguin parade.

“Hmm. Are you sure he’s not divorced? Maybe he’s divorced. And bisexual.” Jake suggests. Zhenya snorts. “Ok, I’m not saying it’s likely, I’m just saying that _is_ a possibility. Maybe you should get on Grindr, go hookup with a hot guy and forget all about your married man.”

“And now I’m remember why I go to Phil for relationship advice and not you.” Zhenya sighs dramatically. But he knows there is a nugget of truth to what Jake is saying: Zhenya needs to move on from Sid. They don’t even get the same bus anymore! He and Sid were never going to happen, and Zhenya just has to accept that.

*

The weeks pass and the leopard cubs grow and Zhenya tries not to think about Sid. The cubs are no longer deaf, blind, and pretty much useless at anything other than sleeping and drinking milk. They’re starting to play fight with each other and explore their enclosure, stumbling every so often on huge paws they’re yet to grow into. Ok, so they’re still pretty useless, but Zhenya loves them.

Now that the cubs are starting to wean and are down to only three bottles of milk a day, Zhenya’s focus is shifting from feeding to entertaining them. The cubs will soon be ready to go outside for the first time and Zhenya has been working hard coming up with good ideas for toys to keep them entertained. Some of them are regular pet toys, others his own creation. He and Olli are sitting in the middle of the outdoor enclosure, putting together a makeshift jungle gym when Olli looks up from hammering a nail into a plank of wood, frowning.

“That guy has been staring at us for a while. He does realize there aren’t any animals in here, right?”

“He probably think you are animal. Easy mistake.” Zhenya smirks as Olli pretends to brandish the hammer at him. Then he looks up at where Olli had been pointing. “Fuck.”

It’s Sid. He’s hovering awkwardly on the other side of the fence, hands shoved deep in his pockets. When Zhenya makes eye contact with him, he tentatively raises a hand in a half wave, smiling shyly. Zhenya just stares back at him, his brain struggling to process what is happening. Neither of the kids are with him. Does that mean—

“Do you know that guy or something?” Olli nudges Zhenya in the ribs with the hammer.

“He is the guy I’m tell Jake about!” Zhenya hisses back, still staring at Sid, his hand falling and the smile sliding off his face.

“The divorced bisexual guy?” Ok, this was why it was probably easiest just to tell Olli any news about his personal life directly. Jake was not the most reliable messenger, with the tendency to vastly distort whatever gossip he’d gotten his hands on.

“He has wife and kids, Olli!”

“Not with him right now, he doesn’t. Unless he’s lost them. Maybe that’s why he’s looking for you now; they fell into the lion enclosure and he wants you to rescue them.”

“Don’t even joke about that!” Zhenya shudders as he stands up. “I’m go talk to him and see why he’s here.”

Zhenya walks over to face Sid through the fence. It feels a little like Sid is visiting him in prison, and Zhenya laughs nervously to himself at the thought. He has no idea why Sid is here.

“You stopped getting the bus,” Sid blurts out, his cheeks reddening a little.

“Yes. My schedule change. Baby leopards grow and I don’t need to get up early to feed them.”

“Oh.” Sid looks down at the ground, his hands twisting a little in his pockets. “That makes sense. I guess there was no need to have been worrying about you then, but I wanted to make sure you were ok.”

“You worried about me?” Zhenya asks before he can stop himself.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t have to apologize. It’s sweet. I think about you, too.” Zhenya says, and, wow, he really should not be flirting right now. “Where are your kids?”

“It’s just me. I have the day off today.”

“You have day off work… so you go to zoo _without_ your kids?” Zhenya clarified, not sure if he was misunderstanding Sid’s English. 

“Well yeah, of course— wait, you do realize those aren’t my own kids, right?” Sid suddenly looks up, alarmed.

“No,” Zhenya says slowly, drawing out the word to emphasize that he was very much not fucking aware of this.

“I’m their nanny. Did I not mention that? That’s why I get the bus so early- I have to go make the kids breakfast and take them to school before I go to class myself.”

“You didn’t mention,” Zhenya says weakly. He’s spent so much of the past month concocting jealous images of Sid’s life with his wife and kids that to find out now that they don’t even exist is almost too much for him to process.

“I guess I was worried about you not being on the bus in case there was something I said or did to upset you… we’re good, right?” Sid’s bright hazel eyes are imploring. Zhenya realizes that he has to tell the truth.

“I was upset. I’m see you with kids and think they your kids, think you have wife. And when I sit next to you on bus, I’d been thinking, hoping that maybe you were single, instead.”

“I am. I am single.” Sid clears his throat, his cheeks now glowing. “And I’d been wondering the same thing about you.”

Zhenya moves to take a step towards Sid but then remembers that there’s a fucking fence between them. This might not have been the best location to have this conversation.

“I think I remember you saying something about liking caffeine,” Sid says, a teasing grin spreading across his face. “How about coffee?”

God, has he missed seeing that smile.

*

Zhenya grins as he stands to watch the now fully grown clouded leopards play, gamboling around in the long grass of the outdoor enclosure, batting their big paws against falling leaves and pouncing on a squeaky dog toy originally sourced from Jake’s golden retriever.

“They’ve gotten pretty big, eh?” Sid remarks as they stand side by side in front of the fence, his fingers casually laced between Zhenya’s.

“The kids, they grow up so fast,” Zhenya grins and pretends to wipe a tear from his eye with his free hand.

“Wait, G, what time is it? I don’t want to miss Penguins on Parade.” Sid quickly checks his watch. 

“It’s ok, Phil is in charge today. He’s always late.” Zhenya says, but lets Sid start leading him towards the aquarium anyway.

It was Zhenya’s idea to come here in the first place.

“Are you sure you want to spend your weekend off at your workplace? I’m pretty sure most people want to get the hell away from their job whenever they have the chance.” Sid had said when Zhenya had suggested celebrating their one year anniversary at the zoo.

“Most people don’t have as cool jobs as me,” Zhenya had shrugged. “And it’s special place. You ask me out at zoo, we spend anniversary at zoo. Maybe we get married at zoo? Flamingo enclosure is very nice.” He’s joking about the marriage part, but Zhenya already knows that he wants that to happen one day. Probably not at the zoo, because that might be a step too far, even for Zhenya, but he knows that he wants to spend the rest of his life with Sid.

“Want to get ice cream?” Zhenya nudges Sid and points at the ice cream stand. Zhenya has become well acquainted with his boyfriend’s sweet tooth over the course of the past year. Sid’s eyes immediately light up and Zhenya buys him a cone with cookie dough and Nutella scoops. Sid takes a bite and makes a contented moaning sound before standing on tip toes to press a quick chocolatey kiss to Zhenya’s lips.

They stand to wait for the penguin parade to begin, Sid occasionally holding the cone out for Zhenya to take a lick. Sid takes a final bite of the cone and throws the napkin in a bin, before wrapping an arm around Zhenya’s waist and tucking his head against Zhenya’s shoulder. Zhenya presses a kiss to his soft dark hair and smiles as the penguins begin their waddling processing towards them, Phil chivvying them along from the rear. He can’t imagine anywhere he’d rather be.


End file.
